Fighting Muslim unreasonableness with humor

With a bikini contest and a pig race. Australians and Americans (real Americans, anyway), ya gotta love 'em. Welcome to the wonderful world of pluralism, boys. Get used to it. This is America. For now, anyway.

Re: What?

All I can say about your post, Paul, is I'm sick to death of "Goregrind":

OK, perhaps not all: by the sounds of "Beneath the Massacre," "Circle of Dead Children," "Necrophagist," "Dissection," "Aborted," "Deranged," "Blood Red Throne," "Dying Fetus," "Decapitated," and "Suffocation," one would think the Sangerites and Singerites would be all about appreciatin' them some "death metal."

What kind of paint?

I was perusing my Google news home page, and noticed this topic under my "How to of the Day": How to Appreciate Death Metal. I never knew what I'd been missing...for one thing, the many nuances just within the death metal genre. Sample:

Not all death metal is the same. The genre contains many sub-genres
that can frequenlty (sic) mix and intermingle with each other. As a result,
it may be difficult to ascribe a band under a single sub-genre. Here's
a general guideline to get you started:

There are many negative generalizations surrounding death metal. If
you're reading this article, you've probably ignored them thus far. If
you become enamored with death metal, be prepared for more raised
eyebrows and grimaces, and continue to ignore them.

Now that you're drawn in, feel free to browse the other associated "How To's" linked within the article, including "How to Apply Corpsepaint."

Immigration deportation program a success

Last week The Charlotte Observer reported about the success of Mecklenburg County's illegal immigration enforcement program, in
cooperation with the federal government. Over a seven-month period
deputies identified 930 aliens among arrestees, causing a jail space problem. But of those, 128 have already been
deported and the remainder of them are in process to be shipped out.

Today I've got an op-ed in The Washington Examiner
calling for a more expansive program from the Department of Homeland
Security, so that other local law enforcement programs who desire to
participate can do so. There are many of them.

And mark the date:
Mecklenburg Sheriff Jim Pendergraph, who has quickly become an expert
on the so-called 287(g) program, is scheduled to speak in Raleigh on
February 19 at a John Locke Foundation Shaftsbury luncheon, here in our
offices downtown.

New Deal delineated

Today's highlight is Scott Zentner's discussion of the New Deal, which "may be understood as the birth of the welfare or administrative state in America."

The New Deal reversed the longstanding American opposition to centralized administration. The traditional Jeffersonian view required that the central government should be empowered to undertake only those things necessary for the common good of the Union as a whole, such as national defense. Americans traditionally believed that state and local governments were better suited to handle economic regulation, which concerned primarily private and parochial interests. The New Deal, on the other hand, made the federal government the arbiter of such interests by reversing the principle of decentralized administration. This meant that the central government would no involve itself in the economic and social lives of individual Americans.

Later, Zentner adds:

The New Deal established a series of welfare benefits that have come to be known as entitlements. Widespread acceptance of the notion of entitlements is one measure of the transformation of the idea of republicanism that occurred during the New Deal. Roosevelt's concept of "enlightened administration" facilitated the belief that each individual is entitled to positive assistance from the central government.

Rick and Donna get kudos

Rick Martinez brought up the genocides of Shia and Kurds with
weapons of mass destruction after the 1991 Gulf War as background
information, and then asked McGovern what we should do if the complete
pullout led to a similar wave of genocidal killings.

I'm paraphrasing here, but McGovern's response was something along
the lines of "it's not our problem," unless we get some sort of an
international mandate to go back in to correct it.

Re: Transfats banned in NYC

Mayor Bloomberg says, "We are just trying to make food safer." He should instead have paraphrased Neil Armstrong: "One small step for New York, one giant leap for the Nanny State."

Could the Times only find one opponent, a spokesman for the restaurant industry? Don't any of New York's "liberal" politicians sense the slippery slope here? If government is supposed to make food "safer" why not insist on all sorts of other things that could make your life safer?

Lawmakers criticize land deal

Regular CJ readers will remember Don Carrington's reporting of the bizarre circumstances surrounding a land deal involving the state and 36 acres in Beaufort.

State lawmakers had plenty of questions about the deal this morning during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations.

Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, called the deal "shabby," while Rep. Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank, called the circumstances "bad, very bad."

Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake, questioned whether the deal strayed from normal state practices, and the toughest questioning came from Rep. Mickey Michaux, D-Durham:

It's just my opinion -- number one -- we're paying twice for property. Number two is that this was a transaction that -- even though they couch it as a gift, we paid for it through the Natural Heritage Trust Fund, which meant that property -- once they paid for it -- the property was supposed to be deeded to the state at the time they got it, which was in 1997. Number [three] is any transaction of this nature under the law must be brought before Gov. Ops. before it goes to the Council of State. That's clear, and it has never come to us. They want to couch it now in terms of a gift -- a gift that was paid for -- and now we're about to pay for it a second time. We need to have a better explanation -- a clearer explanation -- of what's going on here.

That's why Michaux asked colleagues to hold off on considering the deal until State Property Office Director Joe Henderson returns from medical leave. Lawmakers agreed to delay any final action in the matter.

School choice in Selma

The Smithfield Herald's lead editorial Tuesday gives a wry thumbs up to "No Child Left Behind"-mandated public school choice.

All things being equal, this editorial would go something like this: We hope parents will show their commitment to Selma Elementary School by keeping their children there.

But all things are not equal. For years now, Selma parents with means* have been sending their children elsewhere. Now, parents without means have the chance to do so. ...

We suspect that Selma Elementary will emerge from all of this a better school. But schools are secondary to the students who attend them. The Board of Education, to its credit, has long deferred to students, at least those whose parents can afford to send them to better schools. Now, the federal government is deferring to students regardless of means. That has to be a good thing.

=====

* To show how low a threshhold the paper is considering, the "means" they refer to is not about private school tuition, but simply a parent's ability to transport a child to a different public school within Johnston County. And Selma is not a remote rural area far from other schools, either.

Where's Dad?

Perhaps that's the most obvious question raised by the story of the 12-year-old boy arrested -- yes, arrested -- because he opened his Christmas present early.

But my second question is why on earth any parent of a child who shoplifts, steals money, punches police officers, and flirts with expulsion from school would get a Nintendo Game Boy as a Christmas present.

The ex-president's new book flap

One can only hope that those who continue to revere Jimmy Carter as a model ex-president — when he has been perhaps the worst ex-president in American history, far worse in fact than were his policies as president — will read this about a former colleague resigning from the Carter Center because of the ex-president's new book. My favorite quote:

Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook.